Ed,
I think all that plastic's gone to your head. Maybe you've inhaled too much swimbait plastic from melting slash marks back together... :-) Hey, whatever works. Fongster's got a good point of not being able to duplicate your retrieve, but you've got a good point that you're appealing to a wide range of fish activeness/positioning. Either way, whether it's Ed's random retrieve, or everybody elses :-) "constant" retrieve, the both catch fish. The constant retrieve probably keys in on a certain "mode" of fish, like if you get bit dragging along the bottom, you'll continue doing that, and you'll catch a lot of fish that want to eat stuff off the bottom. If you've inhaled a little too much melted plastic fumes, and you want to do a random retrieve on every cast, you'll appeal to a wider variety of "fish moods" and pick up one fish that's eating at mid water, one that's eating off the bottom... etc. I think the constant retrieve focuses on one "fish mode" and hammers that mode, while the varied retrieve appeals to more than one fish mode, and picks up one here and one there, from each mode. Either way, if your rod's bent, you're doin somethin right.
-Brian